Creating Positive Impact

Community Strategy

Assess Community Needs

The best assessments are designed to spark action. This means going beyond the usual dashboard-type indicators to more deeply understand community needs and community potential all the way down to the neighborhood level. We help organizations and communities:

We can help you…

At Community Health Solutions we have extensive experience in helping communities define and address local health needs. The community may include people in specific neighborhoods, cities, counties, regions, or population groups. The improvement aims may include dimensions of health promotion, prevention, clinical care, and social factors in health. The stakeholders may include health service providers, public health agencies, employers, schools, grant makers, consumer groups, and other community-based organizations. Whatever the focus, we help people assess needs, analyze assets, design strategies, build capacity, optimize performance, and demonstrate value.

Assess Community Needs

The best assessments are designed to spark action. This means going beyond the usual dashboard-type indicators to more deeply understand community needs and community potential all the way down to the neighborhood level. We help organizations and communities:

Produce reports and data portals that can be used to spark community action and meet external requirements.

Analyze Community Assets

Research shows that people have a better opportunity for health when they have particular health assets available. One of the most empowering things we can do to support community health improvement is to help vulnerable populations strengthen their health assets. Community Health Solutions developed Community Asset Analysis to address this challenge. We help organizations and communities:

Identify health asset gaps for individuals and populations.

Address health asset gaps by connecting population members to existing community services and supports.

Create or enhance community assets as needed to meet the needs of the population.

Sustain access to community health assets through innovative service models, funding models, and policies.

Design Community Strategies

Community assessments are only valuable if they drive community strategies. At Community Health Solutions we help organizations and communities develop strategies that are evidence-based and responsive to community needs and interests. We help our organizations and communities:

Identify and engage key community stakeholders

Define areas of mutual interests for strategy development

Identify assets that can be leveraged through collaborative strategies

Design strategies that are evidence-based and responsive to community needs

Produce focused analytics that make the case for action and funding

Develop evaluation plans that support learning and accountability.

Develop Community Capacity

Community strategies require community partners that are equipped with the knowledge, skills, resources, and structures necessary to achieve the project objectives. Community Health Solutions provides a proven framework for supporting community capacity building through our Action Learning supports. We help organizations and communities:

Optimize Project Performance

Community strategies typically require ongoing performance support after initial startup. Performance support may involve ongoing training and technical assistance as well as formative evaluation to make sure the initiative is achieving its intended goals. We help our organizations and communities:

Demonstrate Community Value

Private funders and public officials are demanding value in return for their resource investments. By value they typically mean demonstrable evidence of good performance relative to cost for the community initiative. Community Health Solutions has developed Community Value Analysis as a special approach to program evaluation that is focused on measuring the value a community organization or program delivers in return for the resources it receives. We help organizations and communities: